


It's not love

by Lyrae



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dammit Jim, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Faked Suicide, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Jim Has Issues, Language of Flowers, M/M, Pre and Post Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26311372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrae/pseuds/Lyrae
Summary: "It's not love. " was the first thing James Moriarty ever said to Sherlock Holmes.It was funny, really, the boy had muttered that with petals falling off his lips, yet Sherlock couldn't help but believe him.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes & James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes & Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes/James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	It's not love

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the hanahaki prompt on amino!

"It's not love. " was the first thing James Moriarty ever said to Sherlock Holmes. 

It was funny, really, the boy had muttered that with petals falling off his lips, yet Sherlock couldn't help but believe him. 

Maybe it was because of the way they first met, or of the darkness in Jim's eyes, maybe it was because the notion seemed so ludicrous that no one would even think of lying about it. 

Maybe Sherlock just wanted to believe in a fairytale, to trust a mirage. 

He has been investigating the death of a young boy from a nearby school who suddenly had a seizure while swimming and drowned with no apparent reason, when flower petals had started showing up in places he had just visited. 

𝘗𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘢 𝘷𝘶𝘭𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴, 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴, he found out in one of his father's books. 

The dead boy's name was Carl Powers, ex swimming champion and known bully, but Sherlock had stopped caring about him a long time ago. 

In the end, why would he care about missing shoes when there was this new mystery, this petal trail to follow? 

So Sherlock pursued the mysterious Hop-o'-My-Thumb who traded breadcrumbs for flowers, danced along the strings the other laid, and finally found him. 

He wasn't sure what he had been waiting for at this point, a fearsome giant towering over him, a strange creature with features barely befitting of a human being, but he got neither. 

Instead, standing in front of him, was a boy whose height went so well with Sherlock's previous nickname that it almost felt like a universal joke. 

Small, with dark hair and dark eyes, he seemed oddly pleased with himself for a second, and then he coughed, wiping off purple flowers from his chapped lips. 

"It's not love. " he said, and Sherlock only nodded 

"I know. "

_ Purple heather, solitude, admiration. _

The other seemed happy with his answer, the way his pale face lit up distracting Sherlock so much that he almost forgot to ask his next question. 

"You're the one who killed Carl Powers, aren't you? "

_ Why?  _

The child grinned, tilting his head to the side. 

"And what if I am? "

_ An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  _

Sherlock knew he should react, knew that he should scream to alert everyone and tackle the boy until some adults arrived, knew that the best, most moral, course of action would be to just run away and tell someone. 

He knew, but that didn't mean he did it, nor that he wanted to. 

Instead, he shrugged, shot an answering smile and held out his hand. 

"That was some good work. My name is Sherlock Holmes, pleased to meet you. "

And pleased he was. 

"I know. " cold fingers, small and lithe, met with a warmer, larger hand. "James Moriarty, but Jim is fine."

The sun got caught in Jim's eyes  _ just _ right, and for a very brief instant, Sherlock could have sworn he saw buttercups drifting in the abyssal void, dancing amidst falls of honey and stars of amber. 

\-------------

  
  


After that, the two boys could often be found together, running around the woods or simply sitting quietly, reading one book or another. 

Most people would be scared if they knew their friend had killed someone, but Sherlock was not, simply because he had better things to focus on, like Jim's genius or the flowers growing inside his lungs. 

"It's not deadly. " the smaller hummed one day, lying in the grass, idly looking at the shapes of the clouds, and it made no sense, it simply 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦. 

"Flowers are somehow growing inside your body-" and the 'how' was as much of a question, isn't it? No-one really understood how that illness was even possible "-of course it's deadly!" 

No-one understood that disease, that illness that made you cough bloody petals when your love was unrequited, but what everybody knew was that flowers weren't supposed to thrive in your lungs. 

Jim scoffed, closing his eyes. 

"It's not hanahaki doofus, I already told you that."

Sherlock bristled at the word, that name he hasn't dared to voice, but he knew the other was right. 

Of course, Jim had never said that sentence before, not exactly at least, but that was what his '𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 ' had alluded to in the end, wasn't it? 

You couldn't suddenly cough up petals unless you were so in love that your body decided to break every laws of physics, but Jim… 

Jim didn't cough the flowers, he didn't agonise when they grew, he didn't coat them with his blood when they sprung free, if anything, they simply fell when he talked, drifted when he giggled, and Sherlock would have said that the other simply wasn't human, his very blood replaced by cool sap. 

That was a possibility, wasn't it? 

He already looked otherworldly enough, with his too pale skin and too dark eyes, his weight seemed unnaturally low, even for a child, and his temperature was cold enough that any sensible person would immediately bring the boy to the hospital-

"Well, it's not deadly but it did almost kill me once. "

A tilting voice brought his attention back to the conversation, and Sherlock stayed quiet, watching Jim's eyes flutter open. 

It wasn't often that the child spoke about himself, in the few weeks they had spent nearly glued to each other, it was the first time he even mentioned the flowers. 

Heathers fell off his lips, and Jim held one in the air, looking at it critically. 

"Those used to be buttercups before. " 

_ Buttercups, childishness. _

"The other children at school thought I was weird but they didn't care much. Powers however… He was convinced I was a freak and he didn't didn't waste any moment to make that fact clear. "

_ Oh.  _

"So you tried to stop them, didn't you? Stop the flowers from coming. "

Jim nodded, and Sherlock didn't need any other explanation to understand. 

Because of the bullying, the boy had swallowed the buttercups before they could go past his lips, but those golden buds were poisonous, and even if he didn't produce enough for the amount to make his kidneys fail, he must still have been really sick. 

"Powers' 'harmless teasing' could have killed me. " Jim hummed, still looking at the sky, but the next second his face was sliced by a smile which shouldn't have fit on a child's features "So I stopped him. "

'𝘈𝘯 𝘦𝘺𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘺𝘦, 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘩' Sherlock reminded himself. 

"Do you hate me for that? "

Sherlock frowned, looking at the smaller boy. 

"Hate you? Why would I hate you? "

"Well, you were looking for Powers' killer initially, yet you found me and didn't call the police or rat me out. " Jim mused, his gaze still lost in the sky. 

He wasn't wrong, Sherlock's first motivation had been to solve that murder, but now-

"It would be boring to hate you. "

'𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥.' He left unsaid. 

Jim laughed, the giggles permeating the air as flowers fell from his lips. 

When they finally stood up to go back to the town, the smaller left a trail of blue tulips in his wake, and Sherlock couldn't resist the urge to bend down and grab one of the buds, shoving it more or less delicately inside his pocket in an effort to keep that memory forever. 

After all, respect, trust and tranquility weren't things that James Moriarty felt often. 

  
  


\---------------

Sometimes, Sherlock wondered if inviting Jim into his home had been an error. 

Oh, not because of Jim himself of course, he was nothing but courteous to everyone when he was there and his parents seemed smitten with the small, innocent Irish boy who had somehow befriended their son, so no, his friend wasn't the problem here, in fact it was-

"Sherlock, where is James? "

_ Mycroft.  _

"Why do you want to know? He doesn't want to see you either. " Sherlock snapped, not even looking up from his book as he knew his brother hated to be ignored. 

Of course, the answer didn't make him lose his cool, not like Sherlock had expected him to break that icy mask of his anyway, and Mycroft answered with the same, level voice. 

"I want to know because we didn't finish our conversation last time, and I assure you that if he ever said that himself, I wouldn't bother him any longer. " 

He wasn't sure exactly when Mycroft had decided that one James Moriarty was interesting enough to bother talking to, whether it was when he had seen him befriend his loner of a baby brother or when he had been able to follow his mother enthusiastic chatter about some old mathematician, but what Sherlock knew was that ever since that fateful moment, the older had gone out of his way to interact with Jim and he  _ hated  _ it. 

"What do you two even talk about? " he asked, because this way he didn't have to admit he had no idea where the other was. 

Mycroft hummed for a second, seemingly lost in thought, and the sheer weirdness of that expression on his face almost made Sherlock miss the answer. 

"Flowers. "

_ Oh, he knew.  _

These days, Jim had been careful to hide the petals, swallowing the flowers when they weren't poisonous and keeping them in a corner of his mouth until he could get rid of them if they were, but still, Mycroft knew… 

Which meant that it couldn't be a coincidence, at least not completely. 

\-----------------

"Why did you let Mycroft see the petals? " Sherlock asked one day, as they were huddled on the couch, idly watching an old black and white movie. 

'𝘞𝘩𝘺? ' he asked, simply because not knowing would end up killing him-

Jim tilted his head, blinked, and then smiled innocently. 

"Why not? "

That wasn't the answer Sherlock had wanted, but it was the one he had expected. 

"Now he's interested in you. " he frowned in annoyance "And you spend too long around him, you're my friend, not his, and one day he'll forget that and he'll try to take you away. "

His answer came out more childish than he would have wished, but it was the truth in the end, wasn't it? 

Jim giggled, in the way only angels should be allowed to giggle, roses with red and yellow petals falling off his lips. 

_ Was he happy or merely excited? The flowers had meanings of course, but when they had more than one, knowing their symbolism wasn't as useful.  _

"Awww don't worry Sherlock, big brother isn't going to take me away! He's interested because he thinks I'm some kind of evolution of the human race or something, someone that would be able to survive coughing up flowers."

Mycroft had seen the flowers himself after all, multiple times even, striped carnations falling off Jim's chapped lips. 

"It's not hanahaki though… "

The smaller nodded, looking back at the screen even if his eyes seemed lost in the shades of gray. 

'𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦. ' they both knew he meant. 

\--------------

Years passed, they grew older, taller, sharper. 

Even if he didn't look like a lost faerie child anymore, Jim still had that spark in his eyes, that mischief in his steps, and Sherlock couldn't help but doubt the fact that he would ever look normal. 

But well, it wasn't like ordinary people noticed his weirdness anyway. 

They both got enrolled into the same college, decided to take different classes but still rented a flat together, their own little garden of Eden where Jim's potted plants and star charts were alongside Sherlock's experiment and notes. 

Everything was nice there, everything perfectly fit the two of them… In the end, Sherlock wasn't sure whether he loved or hated it. 

"I'm going out for the night, see you tomorrow! " Jim chirped, looking nothing like himself with his ripped skinny jeans and his studded leather jacket. 

'𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘦.' He had explained one day when he had caught his friend staring dubiously at his clothes and his spiky hairstyle '𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦. '

Sherlock wasn't exactly sure what game Jim was talking about, nor with whom it was played, he was half-certain that the other was just entertaining himself on his own, but he knew there was more, and no matter how many times he tried to deduce Jim when he came back from his errands, there was never anything of interest. 

Maybe he should have asked him for more information on his whereabouts, maybe he should have asked just where he found the money to buy his new bespoke suits, maybe he should have asked to follow him and maybe Jim would have even accepted, but he did not. 

Instead, he discovered heroin, plunged the needle into his arm and sinked into the all-encompassing warmth. 

\---------------

Sherlock missed the flowers. 

He missed Jim as well, of course, but seeing the petals drifting away when he laughed always had a special charm. 

It wasn't like the other was dead of course, or even gone, but he wasn't a child anymore, and whatever he was doing now wouldn't allow him to leave flowers in his wake. 

Tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, tac. 

The clock was slow, everything was slow, sluggish, as if the world had been dipped into warm honey and then left to sink through the barely liquid sweet, golden hues lighting his world and dampening his senses. 

He felt… fine. 

Jim came back, or maybe he had never left in the first place, gliding through the flat, sharp, cutting suit leaving tears in his soft universe. 

The next instant he was next to the couch, next to Sherlock, bending, curving, taking his hand as if it was made of delicate crystal, ready to break at any instant. 

Tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, tac. 

"...-"

Jim said something, but the gibberish was lost somewhere along the way-

"Sherlock, what in hell did you do to yourself? "

Oh, he was worried wasn't he? 

"'m okay, jus' drowsy, 'm fine"

_ finefinefine, almost too fine.  _

Somehow the other understood his mumbling and sat next to him, sighing. 

Jim didn't like it when he was high, Sherlock knew it, it made him slow and predictable, but he finally felt like he could breathe again-

And well maybe a tiny part of him wanted to make Jim miserable when he finally decided to come back to his friend, because it was his fault as well, wasn't it…? 

Sherlock knew he was just dumping the blame on someone else, it was his own fault if he felt the need to escape through the heroin, but he couldn't help but resent the other for leaving him all alone to deal with his own thoughts. 

Tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, tac. 

"Do you want to try it? "

Jim had seemed tired when he had walked through the door, not defeated, never defeated, but still… Weary. 

If he was anything like Sherlock - 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 - his mind wouldn't let him rest until his energy was completely depleted and he literally crashed somewhere, so it wouldn't hurt to help him a bit…

"I'm not taking 𝘥𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘴." 

Usually, he would have spit his answer, but today, there was no real bite in his voice, and Sherlock could see it in the way he blinked more often than usual, in how he glanced away for just a second, in the frown twisting his features. 

In the exhaustion permeating his very being. 

"C'mon Jim, don't you want to rest for a bit? "

Tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, 𝘵𝘢𝘤.

Jim coughed, his exhaustion making him choke on the flowers, but instead of convincing him, the orange bloom only seemed to make him more alert. 

"I-" he swallowed, staring at the petals before the resignation darkened his eyes, and wasn't it just quaint to see James Moriarty hesitate this way? 

"I think I should go Sherlock. "

_ Go? _

"Go? " 

Jim bit his lips and turned on heels, disappearing from Sherlock's field of vision as if he had never been there in the first place. 

Maybe he should have called his name, jumped to his feet and grabbed his hand, maybe he should have blocked the door and begged him to stay, said that he needed him like he needed oxygen to live, maybe he should have kissed him and faced the feelings he had avoided through the drugs. 

Maybe he should have stopped him, but he didn't. 

Sherlock Holmes lay down on the sofa of his flat, amidst potted plants, star charts and forgotten experiments, eyes riveted on the clock. 

Tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, tac. 

His gaze fell on the orange blooms, only proof of Jim's presence at his side, of Jim's existence, and he wishes he hadn't memorized the entire book on flower symbolism. 

Butterfly weed-

_ Leave me.  _

\-------------

Sherlock woke up alone, in a now cold flat cast in the blue-ish hues of the night, and things started to slowly come back to him. 

Jim, his offer, the flowers-

He called Mycroft. 

Sherlock would have never called his brother in a normal situation, not even if he thought he was dying and only had a few moments to live, but it wasn't about him, it was about 𝘑𝘪𝘮.

"Where is he? "

Mycroft's voice was strangely weary… And was that pity? 

"What have you done Sherlock? "

_ That didn't answer his question.  _

Scowling at the phone, he forced himself to speak calmly. 

"Not your business brother dear, now, please, tell me 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴."

A pause, a sigh. 

"I don't know. "

_ What?  _

"I know you have your cameras following him. "

There was another pause, and Sherlock was sure the other would have glared at him if they were meeting face-to-face. 

"Yes, and apparently Mr James Moriarty isn't simply your friend but also an incredible hacker, or someone with the means and the connections to hire one at least, since he went through our firewalls easily and displayed a carefully crafted loop when he was leaving. "

"You lost him! " Sherlock snarled, gripping his phone tightly. 

He wasn't sure why he was so angry suddenly, Jim had the right to leave, the right to cut all contacts, the right to want nothing to do with a useless junky-

"And you drove him away, brother mine."

He hung up. 

\-------------

Sherlock missed the flowers. 

He missed Jim as well, of course, he missed him so much he forgot how to breathe on most days, forgot how to even be alive and move. 

There were no messages, no signs of life, he hadn't even returned to take his things and the potted plants had quickly died from the lack of water, the star charts getting torn apart when the emptiness filing his being turned to burning white rage. 

James Moriarty was gone, as if he had never even existed in the first place, the ghost of a mirage, the reflection of a shadow, and so Sherlock fell deeper and deeper into the warm relief the drugs provided. 

\-------------

Years passed, if Mycroft was to be believed. 

Sherlock didn't see them pass in truth, didn't even notice he had gotten older between the first time his brother threw him into rehab and the dozen times he was brought back after escaping or relapsing. 

He didn't think about Jim anymore, but he didn't think about anything else either, his mind slowly poisoned by the poisoned honey that was boredom. 

And then, Mycroft started ending him cases. 

\---------------

He used his mind, met new people, and with time, Sherlock forgot everything about James Moriarty and his flower-filled laugh, he just threw every memory in one wing of his mind palace and closed the door behind him. 

\---------------

John Watson, 4 suicides in a row and a pink phone. 

He tried living with roommates a few times after finally getting out of rehab, but it had never lasted very long, something about him being an annoying prat or something… 

But maybe, just maybe, things would be different this time. 

\---------------

"MORIARTY! " screamed Jefferson Hope, and Sherlock froze. 

He had heard that name before, hadn't he? 

Trying to recall the memory, like with the ones recalling most of his childhood and of his college years, only brought up the image of a butterfly weed. 

\---------------

Molly's boyfriend entered, and for a second, Sherlock could have sworn he saw petals drift in the air, then the moment was gone and it was just gay Jim from IT leaving his number under his platter. 

'𝘏𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘑𝘪𝘮.' 

Sherlock pushed away the thought. 

\---------------

"Jim Moriarty, hi~"

The name echoed in the damp air of the pool, in the chlorine atmosphere, and an old, unused door suddenly found itself open once more. 

Jim. 

It didn't feel like drowning in memories, if anything, he breathed again as if a weight had been taken off his chest. 

One second he was staring, horrified, at John, believing his roommate had somehow managed to fool him since the beginning, and the next, his eyes were meeting Jim's and time was working again. 

For some reason, neither talked about their common past. 

They danced around each other, flirted with veiled threats, and went their separate way. 

Never once did flowers go past Jim's lips. 

\---------------

Mycroft called him. 

Usually, Sherlock would never answer such a call, thank you very much, he already ignored the messages enough, he didn't need the calls, but this time, it was about Jim, if the previous text was to be believed. 

His brother merely told him to join him at the Diogenes club, and he accepted, ignoring his pride for the sake of the other. 

"What is it? "

"I held James for two months. "

Sherlock froze, his stony expression revealing none of his inner thoughts. 

"You tortured him." It wasn't a question, he already knew very well what happened to criminals or spies once they were caught and refused to cooperate… but Jim would have known that as well "What did he want? "

Mycroft sighed, he didn't look away, he wasn't the kind of man to ignore his responsibilities after all, but his slightly furrowed brows were enough to betray him. 

"He wanted to know more about your childhood before you two met, in exchange for information about his network and…"

_And?_

"I offered him amnesty and immunity if he allowed us-" his eyes shone at that, a tiny glimmer meaning 𝘮𝘦 "-to study his condition. "

"What did he say then? " Sherlock asked, even if he already knew the answer. 

"He laughed and gave the same answer he always gave. "

_ Striped carnations falling off Jim's lips, refusal- _

"No. "

\---------------

"Be careful brother dear. " Mycroft said to him before he left, and Sherlock wondered how the other would react if he started laughing now. 

\---------------

He met Jim afterwards, or more exactly, they met each other, at the tribunal, at the flat…

No petals, never, no mention of their past or of college either. 

Sometimes Sherlock wondered if the Jim he had known had a twin, or if the boy he had spent hours with had only been a figment of his imagination, but then the criminal would smile in a certain way, his dark eyes seemingly golden in the light, and he would forget everything about his fears. 

He missed his friend and what the two of them could have been, but they had a game to finish now, hadn't they? 

Hopefully its cost wouldn't be too high. 

\---------------

Tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨.

One second Jim's warm hand was in his, and the next the criminal was lying on the concrete floor, blood flowing out of the wound, blue flowers permeating the air and falling off his lips in the aftermath. 

'𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦. ' was his first, immediate thought. 

It wasn't love simply because it never was and now it never would be. 

A minuscule blue flower drifted right in front of him, and Sherlock couldn't resist the urge to catch it, to have an inkling in Jim's last thought 

Myosotis, don't forget me and-

_ Ah.  _

He crushed the forget-me-not between his fingers, tore it apart until the only things left of the blood soaked flower were a few wrinkled petals. 

Jim was smiling still, dead yet seemingly so content, Myosotis kiss and bloom filled eyes. 

Sherlock coughed, once, twice, and wiped the flowers off his lips. 

_ Asphodels and purple Hyacinths.  _

It wasn't love, of course it wasn't, there was no use loving a dead man after all, so he swallowed the regret, tasted the sorrow, and made a phone call. 

\---------------

Two years passed, two years spent travelling through the world in an effort to destroy what was left of Jim's network, two years where his lungs filled more and more with petals. 

It was always those two specific flowers, the one he had choked on after the gunshot, tasting more and more like blood with each passing day. 

Sherlock came back to England at some point, saved by Mycroft, and for a short while, everything seemed perfect. 

Oh, John was angry, of course he was, but he had found someone to make him happy, and even if Sherlock left early to avoid coughing out his lungs in front of everyone, the wedding had still been a success...

Then Magnussen had gone after Mary, after John, in an effort to get to Sherlock and then his brother, and he had snapped. 

"Merry Christmas! "

\---------------

They both knew it was a suicide mission. 

6 months, Mycroft had said, and Sherlock knew that the flowers would kill him before that. 

It was funny wasn't it, how 𝘩𝘦 was the one who ended up getting hanahaki in the end… 

_And it wasn't even love, not really, just asphodels and purple hyacinths._

\---------------

Jim was back. 

That was what Mycroft had said over the phone, and Sherlock had been ready to take enough drugs to send him in the past before he had noticed a little something on the video playing in the cockpit, just one of the suit's buttons shaped like a little blue flower… 

He stopped himself, dropped the needle, and waited. 

\---------------

John wanted to talk to him, he was worried and frantic, Mary seemed frazzled as well, asking how it was even possible that the consulting criminal had survived blowing his brain out, and Mycroft was merely staring at him with those cold, cold eyes, a small smile curling uo the corner of his lips. 

He ignored them all, ignored the questions and the calls, he left the airport and went back to London, back to 221b Baker Street. 

\---------------

_ Miss me? Miss me? Miss me?  _

A very familiar man was sitting in Sherlock's favorite chair, legs crossed, hair perfectly slicked back, suit as sharp as ever with a myosotis coming out of his front pocket. 

"Did you miss me? " a tilted voice, a grin, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't faked his death and disappeared for years. 

Sherlock swallowed the rain flowers threatening to go past his lips, sat down to face the other and merely smiled back. 

There was no use screaming after all, no use dwelling on the past, Jim had left, once, twice, he had disappeared as if he had never even existed in the first place, but now he was back and they both knew he would never vanish again. 

Their hands unconsciously moved, reached out to one another, fingers entangling, entwining, until there was nothing to seperate them, until there were no more distinctions between the two of them. 

"Of course. "

Jim laughed, exalted, and asters drifted into the air. 

This time, no one denied that it was love. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all liked this!   
> I haven't been able to betaread it yet so I hole I didn't make too many mistakes, tell me what you thought about this! :D


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